Bicycles, Coffee & Miscellany

The return of buzzy the winter bike

As usual, I can’t let any bike just go away. I have to keep rebuilding it until there’s no parts whatsoever left in the take-off bin…

After the crank arm gave away I spent a few nights surfing the net seeing what else I could cobble together so I would have something with fenders that I could run with studded tires during the winter months after they started laying salt on the roads. I thought about getting a set of studs for the trucker, and looked at a few other options, then looked at what it would take to give the 1×7 (which is no longer 7 speed) one more go. Basic problems were the headset and the crank. $35 would fix the crank with a Shimano Alivio square taper and I found a locking top nut for trying to get a little extra bite on the stripped fork threads for another $5. Other stuff would have to change to make it all fit…

In the front end, I had to switch back to flat bars so I could run my linear pull brakes and get rid of the canti-brake induced stress on the headset nut from the cable hanger. In the back end I had to get rid of the gears because I didn’t have a place to hang a shifter any more. (Yes I’m aware that there are thumb shifters and grip shifters that I could pick up for under $10 but I just don’t want to deal with it. This is my beater plain and simple.)

Locking headset nut has allen bolts on the side to pinch it in place once it’s adjusted correctly. Hopefully it will hold.

Shimano Alivio cheapie crank with my old 36t Blackspire ring and Spot guard. Left the 22t granny on as a manual ‘bailout gear’ for really nasty days or if I get stuck on a terrible hill. The chain had a bunch of stiff links which I’m sure were partly to blame for all the cursing I did during this bike’s last iteration as a single speed.

Put my 16t singlespeed conversion kit back on. Old derailleur with the limit screw torqued in works 10 times better than the surly singelator I had years ago.

Chainline is ‘just’ about right. Not that this picture shows it.

I’m trying to be economical about how I use up bike stuff, but I do have a revised list of things that I refuse to purchase for this bike.

26″ wheels – doubt these’ll go first since the 7spd wheel I built is fine and I still have 1 extra front wheel in the parts bin.

A seatpost for this frame. It’s holding up well too.

That’s about it. Anything else would transfer well to another project. Went for a coast to the store and around town today to try it out. It was remarkably fun to ride for what it is, but I do need to drop the front bars and slide the saddle back on the rails a little bit. The top tube is still wayyyy too short. Cross your fingers that it holds together folks!